Quote of the Day | July 9, 2008: The Outward and Visible Expression

Mark Twain on baseball, from the Boston Daily Globe, 1889:

Though not a native, as intimated by the chairman, I have visited, a great many years ago, the Sandwich Islands -- that peaceful land, that beautiful land, that far-off home of profound repose, and soft indolence, and dreamy solitude, where life is one long slumbrous Sabbath, the climate one long delicious summer day, and the good that die experience no change, for they but fall asleep in one heaven and wake up in another.

And these boys have played base-ball there! Base-ball, which is the very symbol, the outward and visible expression of the drive, and push, and rush and struggle of the raging, tearing, booming nineteenth century! One cannot realize it, the place and the fact are so incongruous; it's like interrupting a funeral with a circus. Why, there's no legitimate point of contact, no possible kinship, between base ball and the Sandwich Islands; base ball is all fact, the Islands all sentiment. In base ball you've got to do everything just right, or you don't get there; in the islands you've got to do everything just wrong, or you can't stay there.

Tags: Mark Twain, baseball